Officer of Hyatt, and to Joan's left is Adam Rohman, Senior Vice President of Financial Planning, Investor Relations, and Other Corporate Finance Functions. Did I get that correct, Adam? Is that? Yeah, I think I got the longest title in the company. That's close enough. Great. It's been a busy last year, last few years, for Hyatt and probably a lot of things to go through and discuss. But I think it would be very helpful to step back and just talk about what are Hyatt's top strategic priorities as we go into the balance of this year and set up for future success, not just in this year but in future years. Sure. Thank you, Joe, and thanks for the invitation to the conference. Last year was our first year, and we really enjoyed it. This year's starting off really well, too. First, let me just say that our strategy has yielded great results, as evidenced by our earnings report that we provided at the end of 2023, which is the culmination of many years, as you said, of a transformation of our earnings profile. First, our mix, our asset-light earnings mix, was 76% as of the end of 2023. That's an increase from 2017 when we began our disposition program. At that time, it was 47%. We are now an asset-light company. We had committed to moving that number to 80% by the end of 2024, at the end of our current disposition program, which is halfway done to the $2 billion that we committed back in 2021. With the asset sales that we now have underway, if we close all of those, we'll be at 85% on a run-rate basis. So over that period of time, we have sold real estate, unlocked the value on our balance sheet, and we have acquired, used some of those proceeds to acquire asset-light companies. And the earnings and returns that we've generated from those acquisitions is double the size of the earnings that we lost from the dispositions. So this transformation and the asset-light percentages that we've reached are right along lines of what we anticipated, but great execution. So that's one, our asset-light mix. The second is, on several dimensions, we've led the industry in growth: growth in our net rooms, growth in our total fees, and growth in our World of Hyatt members, to name three very important ones. As we think about our growth and our industry-leading growth and the growth in our fees associated with that, very, very much a focus of ours is our fees per room and having quality fees associated with the net rooms growth that we're reporting. We have, since 2019, Adam, the numbers over 20% growth in our fees per room. It's an incredible figure when you consider that there's a significant proportion of our growth that's come from the upscale segment. So those, obviously, lower fees per key or, excuse me, fees per room. And so overall, we've been able to expand our fees per room. And that, as part of our industry-leading growth on many of these dimensions, is something we're really proud of and is really creating shareholder value. The third point I would make is we've expanded free cash flow. Because we are a fundamentally different company, our free cash flow numbers are significant, and they are leading to our generating significant returns for shareholders. In the past six years, we've had returns to shareholders over $2.5 billion. On all of those three areas, we're really proud of the execution that we've made over the past six years. Great. So you highlighted the increasing mix to an asset-light model, net rooms growth in excess of your peers, more or less is sort of what I'm interpreting from what you're saying. That's what I would say and think, and then an improving conversion of EBITDA into free cash flow. And those were topics at last year's Investor Day in May, about 10 months ago. Feels, in some ways, longer than that. In some ways, not that long ago. And maybe you can revisit some of those multi-year targets and then maybe overlay your views on your 2024 targets. And maybe you can assess where you think you are in line, ahead, need to play catch-up with some of those targets, or how you're viewing those overall multi-year targets in relation to what you're seeing the business perform presently. Sure. On one dimension, we're ahead of those targets, and that is our asset sale disposition program. We had anticipated and are fully committed to completing the $2 billion that we committed to in 2021. And we are tracking ahead of that, which is what we communicated on our fourth quarter earnings call. So if we, the five transactions that are in advancing stages now, and we continue to report the progress that we're making, if those all close, we will be at over 85% asset-light earnings mix. So that is over and above what we disclosed at Investor Day. And then on many other dimensions, we're tracking. We're tracking to our Investor Day metrics. We had communicated on the RevPAR front for the next two years, we anticipated that we would be 3%-7%. Our outlook for this year is 3%-5%. Part of that is because of an accelerating performance in 2023, greater than our outlook at the time of Investor Day. So that weighs into the multi-year projections. But a healthy outlook and a very reasonable outlook for this year, considering that we have healthy growth that we're seeing in the group side with respect to the pace on the books for group and continued what I would call near-term visibility as it relates to leisure and business transient. So those numbers could pick up. And Asia has been a strong source of growth contributing to RevPAR. So there's areas of opportunity for upside, but we feel really confident right now about the 3%-5%. And then finally, net rooms growth, we had communicated 6%-7% and our outlook for this year, 5.5%-6%, that we just updated. And so that is a result of we've seen a little bit of slowing in the pipeline of openings, which is temporary. We have a very, very healthy signings profile. Our pipeline right now is at a record level, 127,000 rooms that we reported at year-end. So we have a lot of runway into the future. So this year, we feel confident about the 5.5%-6%. Some of that is incorporating conversions that we have some visibility to, that we're factoring in and, of course, hotels coming out of the pipeline. So again, a reasonable number as we start out the year. As we look longer term, we've got a really healthy pipeline growing in Hyatt Studios, which we believe that, with combination of what we're seeing on the signings front and what we will see as what I was considered some of the slowing that we're seeing and hotels progressing through the pipeline, will accelerate as the financing environment becomes a little bit easier. Anything else you'd add to that, Adam? No, I think when we met at Investor Day last year, we had just announced Hyatt Studios. I think we've been very pleasantly surprised about the progress that we've made, the developer interest. We talked about over 200 deals in various stages. So we always thought we had a great opportunity with Studios, but I think that is going to create additional growth for us in a number of different areas, including both net rooms growth but our ability to continue to accelerate the growth of our membership base over time. And it's probably further ahead than where we thought we would be at this time. Great. And maybe, Adam, you can chime in on this, too, because this was a role that you had before in terms of asset dispositions. But you said asset dispositions are tracking nicely ahead of where you thought they would be last May at the Investor Day. What's driving that? Yeah, I think that there's a couple of things. One, some of the types of deals that we've looked at and we've talked about in the past that we, last year, were going through, we had two international deals that we were working through, one of which has since closed in Hyatt Regency Aruba. Those just take time, right? It's not just financing, but some of it's tax structuring and local regulatory laws that you just have to clear. So we felt like we were in a position last year to look at doing a couple of deals internationally that we thought made sense but recognized they would probably take a little bit longer than a typical domestic deal. Where we've seen probably some improvement over the last, call it, quarter or two is in two places. One, the CMBS market has improved dramatically. You guys have probably also seen it looks like private equity is ready to get back into the fold. There's been a number of different companies that have been raising funds or closing out funds, which we think will be helpful. We've also just seen a lot of inbound inquiries for certain assets that we own. And those are great because we can kind of cut to the chase and talk about, does the pricing make sense? Does the owner make sense? Is it someone that we're familiar with? And that allows us to move faster than if we do a typical public marketing process where we've got to wait for tours, wait for bids to come in, probably do another round of bids, and then go through negotiating management agreements and purchase and sale agreements. So I think the fact that we've seen some off-market discussions take place, probably, I think, has given us more confidence in our ability to get this done, maybe even a little bit earlier than we thought, which probably a quarter ago we would have been thinking towards the end of this year. Got it. So if the current set of assets are going to be sold at a faster pace than you thought, does that mean whatever is behind that for the next phase would also be accelerated? We have always been consistent about taking another announcement when we complete the current announcement. Well, feel free to use this as a platform to make a new announcement. When that $2 billion is complete, if we were to make any change, we would do it at that time. Joe, we're fundamentally an asset-light company at 76%. At 85%, Adam was describing some of the criteria around how we think about the buyer and how we're underwriting these deals because there is a lot of value in our portfolio. So the way we have sequenced the disposition program has been very intentional so that we can actually engage with buyers who will invest in our brands and who we can have a long-term relationship with, a long-term management or franchise contract, which, by the way, isn't included in the values that we disclose. So that is how we think about our strategy. And we're very thoughtful and intentional about that in driving shareholder value. Frankly, I think that we've done a really good job of identifying occasionally assets that's very strategic in some pockets where we've acquired an asset in a market where we really need distribution. So as we think about the remaining portfolio, there could be opportunities for value creation from that perspective, gaining distribution. We have the skill set and the know-how. We'll be expanding that way when it makes sense for us. No, I think there's a lot of opportunity to create value. Selling assets net of tax, if there is a tax consequence, not like the Aruba asset, where there's really no tax consequence. Selling assets at a net multiple higher than your own multiple creates value. But then also the change in the business mix should also lead to a higher valuation multiple. So we look forward to more success there. You have about 275,000 managed and franchised rooms. As you mentioned before, your development pipeline is 127,000. So you have sort of growth of about 40%, assuming all of that gets built out. And that's probably short-changing you a little bit because not all of the conversions hit your pipeline. When you look at what's in your pipeline versus your existing installed base of managed and franchised room, how do you compare the mix of fees per room? Is it pretty consistent? Is it accretive to the existing fee per room? How are you looking at that? It is pretty consistent. We have about 2/3 of our pipeline, roughly, that is international, which is the fees per key are strong there. Fees per room are strong. And managed hotels, about 2/3 also is managed hotels. So as you look at the run rate, that fee per room equation will continue to be sustained and strong. Obviously, the new upper midscale brand, Hyatt Studios, will have a different composition. But as you think about the areas where we are growing at significant rates, like the All-Inclusive Collection is growing at a healthy double-digit rate in net rooms growth. So some of that will balance across the portfolio and into the future. Great. One of the ways you've grown your asset-light composition or asset-light mix is through brand acquisitions. Obviously, ALG was the biggest, but there was Two Roads, Miraval, Dream. I might be missing a few there. How would you look at the environment right now in terms of whether there are large-scale, probably not, or mid or small-scale sort of brand-tuck-in type of opportunities? Obviously, that's maybe a topical issue right now with the Hilton news today with the Graduate Hotels. How are you seeing the environment for externally-driven growth? Sure. One of the things we've done in our go-to-market strategy, we were talking with an investor this morning about this, is that we've actually looked at portfolios around the world. There's hundreds of portfolios that are unaffiliated with large brands. Of course, not all of them would be a fit for us. But in the strategy that we have, very data-driven, we are focused very much on the customer base. So are those portfolios, those opportunities, do they have a brand reputation that is strong, a customer base that has some overlap with ours so that as we think about building our network effect, we're doing that through acquiring a customer base that is going to enjoy being part of the World of Hyatt program and increase their engagement with us? So does that opportunity, whether it's a portfolio or a portfolio deal, an acquisition, is there that overlap? Through the customer base lens is a big priority. And another is the pipeline. So can that brand grow? Can we grow that brand and increase distribution where our guests want to travel? So we're doing that analysis. And as we look at the funnel of opportunities that exist, the ones that we prioritize are more directly in line with those characteristics that we're looking at. Got it. Great. You touched on it a little bit about the group strength this year. That's probably going to be a recurring theme, I would imagine, at this forum from the lodging folks as well as the Las Vegas Strip operators. Can you talk about how you're viewing and maybe what's different this year versus the last couple of years in terms of the individual business transient traveler, the leisure traveler, which has sort of been on this toward resilient recovery since coming out of COVID? Then maybe you can sort of break it out between maybe the U.S. and then maybe what you're seeing from customer behavior in China, maybe meaning both sort of the hotel buyer as well as the hotel owner and developer. That's probably a nice multi-part question in there. Okay. Let me start with demand segmentation-wise. Now, our business has changed with the acquisitions. We already had a significant base of leisure customers and properties that serve leisure customers. Now, it's over 50% of our room revenue. And that customer has led the recovery and remains resilient. Our leisure revenue was up 6% in the fourth quarter. And the visibility isn't as long as, say, in the group side. But we reported the pace into our resorts, in all-inclusive resorts, is up 11% in the first quarter. So a lot of strength that's still coming from the leisure customer. And we're seeing that around the world. I mean, just recently, Chinese New Year, we saw a lot of travel and leisure business into our hotels in Greater China. On the group side, which has been sort of the second customer segment to recover, has been very strong and gaining momentum. Our pace for this year at 8%. We look at the next couple of years, we're in the double-digit growth into 2025 and 2026. And importantly, there is a significant portion of that that's coming from rate. So what that tells us is that these customers are really prioritizing this group occasion. And they're demanding certain dates because when they have that kind of profile, we're able to yield rates into the future. So it takes a very strong revenue management team. But when you have that demand, you're able to drive both rates and those significant growth rates into the future. On the business transient side, that is where we are still below pre-COVID levels. And that's primarily in the U.S. What we're experiencing is there's a bit of substitution that's really hard to kind of be precise about as far as how much of that business transient purpose of visit is actually showing up in leisure or showing up in a small group because there are more small groups actually today. And that's people not being in the office, maybe getting together in small group settings. So we see growing momentum on the business transient side. But it has been slower. And some markets are very strong, like New York in particular. We've seen strength in business transient. We serve a high-end customer, corporate business traveler that is returning. And so we see that continuing. On the geographic front, the business traveler outside the U.S. is back to pre-COVID levels. So this is encouraging as we think about where we're headed in the U.S. as well. And the only region at a top-line perspective that lagged was Asia. And now, Asia is over 2019 levels. And that's coming mostly from domestic business. Inbound is starting to ramp up. But the flight capacity just needs to get back to normalized patterns in order for that. That's a tailwind for us going into the future. And so overall, we're really encouraged about the outlook. And we see on all dimensions strength in the business. Great. China development, China is a big part of your development pipeline. What are you seeing there? Are there any kind of green shoots of activity there that could be encouraging? Green shoots is strength in signing. So still remains strength in demand as far as owners and developers wanting to build hotels. In particular, our upper midscale brand in China is doing really well, the UrCove brand. We have about 40 open today. And we'll be up to 100 based on what's in the pipeline. These open really quickly. They are. are. I'm using the wrong word. Adaptive reuse. Adaptive reuse. Thank you, Adam. Adaptive reuse. So they're taking existing buildings and putting the brand in quickly to great success in market. So on that front, there is a lot of interest in signings. And it happens to be that the advancing in the pipeline is a little bit slower. And so what we hear from our team on the ground is that what the government is doing is helping companies because there's been some challenges in the property market. And one of the areas that the government is helping is to save for property developers because this is the way to continue to stimulate the economy in certain markets. Is they're helping them to get these hotels advanced and financed. We do have a significant portion of our hotels there that are state-owned. So that support comes directly into those ownership groups. Then some of the private enterprises are getting some support from the government. We see that in the future, that should be accelerating, that opening. Yeah. We've also heard too that some of the, as Joan mentioned, as the government's been looking to stimulate demand, a lot of it's going into the state-owned enterprises where we've got very good relationships. And they're stepping in on the private side to look for opportunities to further the development. So I think we feel really positive about what's coming for us and our opportunities to continue to grow. Got it. Obviously, when you reported fourth quarter results, one of the things you talked about and disclosed was the sale of the Unlimited Vacation, UVC, business. Can you talk about the background of that? How long was that in the works? And maybe you can remind us how you view the strategic and financial benefits of that sale. Yeah. So we started talking internally last summer about a potential opportunity and really viewed it through a couple of key lenses. The criteria that we had was very specific. We needed a partner who saw the value of the business, who wanted to continue to grow it. It had to be exclusive to the Hyatt Inclusive Collection. We weren't interested in opening it up beyond our brands. And then obviously, we had to structure it in a way where we could create value in an ongoing way through some type of fee stream. So that was kind of the background criteria. In the fall, we began talking to an investor who ultimately ended up being the buyer. And they checked the box on all of the criteria. And so we were able to get that, obviously, to the finish line a couple of months ago. The way we sort of viewed the value was, obviously, there was the cash considerations that we received. But we really looked at the opportunity to take the earnings that we were generating previously, which were in some ways confusing to investors because of the GAAP losses with the add-backs from net deferrals and net finance contracts, and turn that into a fee stream, which is exactly what we've done. So as we look at the deal on a full-year run-rate basis this year, we would expect fees had the deal closed at the beginning of the year in the high 60s. The multiples that you've put on our fee business and others are sort of in the 15x-16x. So, between that plus the cash that we've received, well over $1 billion of value that we feel like has been created through the transaction, not to mention our 2024 buzzword of simplicity that we get to talk about how we've really shifted the way we operate. That's a good segue to make my next question, the financial reporting, financial disclosures. Can you talk about how you're thinking of that and maybe the timing of putting out a pro forma for the asset sales, the UVC sales, how the reportable segments are going to be consolidated and shifting a little bit? So that'd be great to hear from you on the latest thinking on that. Yeah. We'll file an 8-K a couple of weeks before we report our first quarter earnings, which will include the historical recast of our results for the new segments, which are management franchising, owned and leased, and distribution. As part of that, we are planning and we will simplify a lot of our external reporting. We've got a lot of great feedback around ways of how we can focus our story and tell it in a way that is maybe less detailed but provides more transparency. Succinct but perfunctory that everybody should strive for. Succinct but perfunctory. Not perfunctory. That's right. And so we're really focused on that. Ryan, who's sitting over here, is on my FP&A team. And Tara on the IR team are working very hard as we speak with a number of other teams internally to make sure we're ready to go here in about a month. But we'll provide an updated growth model. We will take the infamous or famous Schedule A-22, which shows the breakdown of the UVC transaction, and include that as well so that people can point back to that. And we'll likely take a look at our 2025 Investor Day adjusted EBITDA target and recast that specifically for the UVC transaction because we do get a lot of questions of, "Okay. How do I think about this going forward?" So all very much top of mind as we head into Q1. Got it. And you said that 8-K will be filed two weeks before the release of first quarter results in the conference call. And are you thinking the first quarter conference call will be at a similar time as in the past, or? It'll probably be a week later than normal just to give us a little bit of extra time to get the realignment ready to go. We'll hold a call with our sell-side covering analysts before our earnings call just to answer any questions so that you guys are ready to go when we release. Great. We have one second left. Maybe the final question here could be something, Joan, that you touched upon at the beginning in terms of strategic initiatives, improving the conversion of EBITDA and free cash flow. How are you thinking about the allocation of that growing free cash flow? Sure. Excuse me. Between that and proceeds from asset sales, which are coming, we do have a focus on continuing to invest in the growth of the business. So given what I was describing about the opportunities that we're looking at that are in the funnel, those are things that we will invest in if we believe that they drive significant shareholder value. So that is one of our priorities. We have consistently been committed to investment-grade profile. And we will continue to be very committed to that. And we will also be returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases and our dividend program. So we're going to balance all of those like we have for multiple years. And so that's how we're thinking about creating shareholder value through the capital allocation. Great. On that note, we'll end it. Thank you so much, Joan. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it.